Madonna teaching channel or why female sexuality continues to be taboo from the 60s

“30 years ago, I published a book called SEX. In addition to including nude photos of her, there were photos of men kissing men, women kissing women, and me kissing everyone. I also wrote about my sexual fantasies and shared my point of view on sexuality. I spent the next few years being interviewed by closed-minded people who tried to shame me for my way of empowering myself as a woman. They called me a whore, a witch, a heretic and even a demon. Now Cardi B can write about her vagina. Kim Kardashian can appear on any cover with her bare buttocks. And Miley Cyrus can come as a wrecking ball. You’re welcome, bitches.” When madonna published SEX, an erotic book with explicit images taken by photographer Steven Meisel in 1992, the singer was 33 years old. when she posted the message that opens this article on your Instagram account, where he was commemorating the 30th anniversary of its release, he was 63 years old. What the 33-year-old Madonna and the 63-year-old Madonna have in common is that they have both been insulted, humiliated and criticized for openly displaying their sexuality. Before, for her work. Now, for the content of their social networks.

The artist’s work is well known: Madonna continues to wear the shining crown that gave her the title of queen of pop. Since the 20th century, the Guinness Book of Records He considers her the most successful musical soloist in the world. She is also the best-selling female artist in history; above it are only the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. Talking about the figures of an artist who has broken all the records is even redundant. Beyond that, she is an intergenerational icon, a star from before, known in any corner of the planet earth. Throughout her career, two words have served to refer to her: transgression and reinvention. The difference is that now something is happening that had never happened before: viewers — fans or detractors — have access to parts of the artist’s life that previously remained hidden. Thanks to social networks, Madonna is, again, another Madonna. A sexy and sexual 63-year-old woman, in tight clothes, who shows off her intimate lingerie and her collection of vibrators with total naturalness and flirtatiousness, who takes selfies showing her dick and who smokes joints, rubs herself with young people and joins tiktok trends. His appearances on social networks are widely commented (and criticized), making headlines in sensational media. There are few superstars with whom this new facet of Madonna can be compared, in part because many of those superstars are no longer in the world of the living. As she once stated: “People believed that one day they would wake up and it would no longer be there. But they were wrong: I will never leave.”

“Madonna’s sexuality has generated discomfort since the beginning of her career: to begin with, she chooses Madonna (virgin, in Italian) as her artistic name, with which she begins to flirt with the subject of religion from the beginning. On her second album, in 1984, she released the single Like A Virginwhere he dealt with a subject as provocative as virginity and female sexual desire, “explains Eduardo Viñuela, Doctor of Musicology from the University of Oviedo and editor of the book, to EL PAÍS Bitch She’s Madonna (Two Whiskers, 2018). “From that moment on, he is combining two elements that are going to be fundamental in the provocation of Madonna: religion and sexuality.”

In the eighties, the MTV phenomenon arises and she seizes the moment: “The eighties are MTV years, but they are in part thanks to artists like Madonna”, explains the musicologist. The video clips of the artist were loaded with messages, more or less explicit, more or less subtle, where provocation is one of the maxims: “She plays provocation through sexuality, but it is also an undefined sexuality , ambiguous, nor normative, nor hegemonic. She plays with androgyny, with homosexuality or lesbianism. Madonna is impossible to pigeonhole. And all these components do not fit well within a society as puritanical as the United States and the patriarchal society in general. “Whether through the book SEX or the album Eroticahas always shown herself as a woman who enjoys her sexuality openly, inviting others to live theirs freely and defending the right to experience sex and love as everyone wants, “Natalia Flores, co-author, tells EL PAÍS with Borja Prieto from the illustrated book Madonna. A biography (Editorial Plan B, 2021). “Madonna has taken the mainstream ways of bonding outside of heteronormative representations, and that has generated discomfort,” he adds.

Madonna stands up and breaks the stereotype, showing herself as a sexualized woman past 50, who continues to dance on stage, composing and creating as if she were 30 years old. And this, that many rockers like Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop or Keith Richards are allowed and applauds, Madonna is penalized “.

Since the release of his first album in 1983 until today 39 years have passed. And we continue to meet a Madonna who enjoys the art of provocation through sex. Now, female desire is presented as an anomaly, since the desiring subject is a woman over 60 years of age. “If there is something controlled and restricted in our society, it is sexuality in women. And this works both ways, since the criticism always appears both for the fact that a woman does something and that she does not do it; that is, criticism arises when they do not submit to what the male sex wants. In the case of Madonna it is perfectly visible: the patriarchy wants and desires to see women naked, but not when the woman undresses because she wants to, as she has done throughout her career, or when she wants, which is when she has grown older”, explains to EL PAÍS Eulàlia Lledó Cunill, doctor in Romance Philology, writer and regular contributor to The Huff Postwhere you published the article Praise of old age. Of the spirit and of the mindin which he criticized some of the common prejudices and discriminations to which older people are subjected in our society, discrimination known as ageism.

“If we add to this that, in the eyes of society, a non-normative body is being shown because it is an old body, the immediate response is: ‘What are you doing? What has been thought?”, continues the writer. “Because a woman over 60 should vanish, should become invisible, should dress in clothing that covered her from the neck to her feet,” she adds. Lledó points out the double standard with which male and female sexual desire is judged: “In this society it is assumed that after a certain age women lose desire and lack sexual needs. In an older man, having desire is a merit and a source of pride (hence the blue pillswithout going any further), but in a woman it is a transgression”.

“One of the fundamental issues is that we are facing something new, because there are no figures who have aged at the top of the mainstream and within a musical genre that is designed for teenagers,” says Eduardo Viñas. Other musical genres such as jazz, soul, rock or classical music allow their artists to age to the point that many pop artists end up embracing other musical genres, those that are culturally considered more serious and mature genres. In a figure like Madonna, within a musical style with an ephemeral will, changeable and with a focus on youth, what would be expected of her would be a semi-retirement: she could focus on musical production, as a godmother of young artists, or she could have, as in the case of Cher, a show in vegas, where he played his greatest hits. But she is still active, and that too is an anomaly: “Madonna is breaking down cultural barriers that have long passed as biological, like the myth that menopause is the death of a woman’s sexuality because she no longer has the function to procreate Here Madonna stands up and breaks the stereotype, she shows herself as a sexualized woman past 50, who continues to dance on stage, compose and create as if she were 30 years old. And this, that many rockers like Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop or Keith Richards are allowed and applauds, Madonna is penalized “.

“One of his most significant speeches was the one he gave at the Billboard Awards in 2016, when she received the recognition for Woman of the Year”, points out Natalia Flores, “there, she spoke about the discrimination she suffered throughout her career, the sexism and misogyny she had to live with as one of the most recognized personalities within of the entertainment industry. And, the worst thing, is that now she continues to live the same: we find it fantastic to see Mick Jagger pretending to be an eternal teenage rebel, but Madonna is required to grow old elegantly”. On that occasion, the singer referred to that double standard with which she was judged against other male artists: “Wait a minute, perhaps Prince was not there out there with fishnet stockings, heels, lipstick and showing her ass? Yes, she was. That’s when I understood that women don’t have as much freedom as men,” Madonna said.

“What is happening with Madonna is a counter movement that has been in force throughout her career: trying to pigeonhole her, tame her, placate her, delegitimize her or discredit her,” says the musicologist. Nothing new under the sun, not even for her. As throughout her entire career, where she paved the way for other female artists and managed to change the course of the pop world through albums like Music, Ray of Light either Confessions, is also now exploring new territory: that of a global pop superstar who is still active in his 60s and refuses to retire, hide or disappear. Madonna revolutionized the world with SEX Y Erotica, and continues to do so by showing off her lingerie or showing off her collection of vibrators on Instagram. Madonna provokes and, to no one’s surprise, the world responds to her provocation.